Things that annoyed me somewhat about the movies, #294: the “Ride to ruin and the world’s ending!” Rohirrim warcry in the books was Eomer’s “Theoden and Eowyn are dead, let us throw caution to the wind and die honorably too” battle cry, not Theoden’s prebattle “Now that we have drawn up our lines, let us advance into battle” speech.

Things that I thought were awesome about the movies, #9: Theoden’s “how did it come to this” speech before Helm’s Deep came out better than it does in the books!

I am obligated to say that in my time on the net (online playing various games for 5 years), I have never seen someone with the same name that I use for all my main characters. Until you :D What makes it weirder is I chose the name by combining random syllables. Now, coz of you, I know its a leg muscle too :) And you’ll never read this comment given that your post is from 2007… STILL obligated to post this!

Theoden: “Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death!”
Eowyn: “Oh,no! We’re doomed!”
Merry: “What? Why?”
Eowyn: “He’s been reading Tennyson again…”

Gandalf was a mage skilled with fires and other things that went “kaboom”, right?
So why the heck didn’t he spend all the time prior to the end of Third Age by designing and stockpiling rifles and guns in secrecy? ;) Imagine ringwraith Captain getting salvo from muskettes and a grapeshot as he rides through the gates of Minas Tirith. Undead or not, I think it would do him no good (and at the very least his horse won’t sustain it) ;)

So why the heck didn't he spend all the time prior to the end of Third Age by designing and stockpiling rifles and guns in secrecy?

Assuming that Gandalf was familiar with gunpowder or something similar (given that he’s skilled in making fireworks, this is probably a safe assumption), there is still the question of who is to manufacture these firearms. As far as we can see, metallurgical prowess is limited to the dwarves (who have been driven from their homes and scattered; the largest concentration during the Third Age is, IIRC, in the Withered Heath, far to the north of civilization), the elves (who are unlikely to be interested in mass-producing firearms for human kingdoms), and perhaps Gondor (the economy of Gondor doesn’t seem to be in great shape, and their kingdom’s resources are constantly expended, towards the time of LOTR, in keeping Mordor at bay). In addition, the ability to make quality armor does not mean that a civilization can cast (or bore out) a cannon or make fine-tolerances moving parts for firearms. You refer to “rifles” specifically – a technological advance (drilling out the barrel in a certain pattern) which came only after firearms had already been used for centuries.

Attempting to perfect a firearm design (not a specific model like the Colt 1911, but rather a category such as a flintlock) would take at least decades of debugging during in-the-field use, which makes rather a chicken-and-egg problem. In addition, there is not, in the grand scheme of things, a whole lot of time to accomplish all this. The return of Sauron came during Bilbo’s own lifetime (Gandalf accompanied Thorin’s party so that he could investigate the mysterious Necromancer in Mirkwood). Before that, why bother stockpiling powerful new weapons against an enemy which apparently didn’t exist?

This is a good explanation, although I would point out that in reality, the plate armour and trebuchets that Gondor has in the films were contemporaneous with early cannon. Firearms really should be within the reach of a late medieval society like Gondor.

Tuccy @#14 –
Aside from Sartorius’ points, the main reason is that Tolkien hated the modern world, industrialism, and just about everything that happened after around 1913. It’s clearer if you’ve read the books, especially the Scouring of the Shire at the very end, but Saruman’s downfall is essentially that he embraced an industrial way of life as opposed to the more pastoral, feudal society that Gandalf was trying to protect. It’s no accident (at least I assume Jackson was aware of this) that Isengard is shown producing orcs on a primitive assembly line. For Gandalf to rely on technology to defeat Sauron would have been about as bad as letting him win.

I prefer Sartorius’ points, because they make sense within the universe of Middle Earth. Tolkien’s Luddism isn’t an entity within Middle Earth; although obviously influencing it greatly, it’s clearly external.

Also, the C20 is far too late to be talking about early firearms; did you know there were cannon at Bosworth Field in C15? They weren’t that new either, reports of European cannon go as far back as C12. To put it in perspective, in 1913, the most common small arms of WW2 were already around.

Will someone PLEASE teach Colin some new words! BTW, Hope you’re feeling better Shamus. Providing your fans with new posts while you’re recovering from surgery is DEFINITELY going above and beyond the call of duty. You rock!

TBau, I think you mean “gleaned”. Plus, you forgot the apostrophe that makes “Tolkien’s” possessive singular, not plural. Ok, I’ll stop now before I get beaten. I just had to get that out of my system. Sorry, TBau, yours was just the last post before mine.

If this was a computer based RPG I think the party would have downloaded some 3rd party modern weapon mods.
I.E.
(Aragorn) “Sod using Anduril, I have a +3 M-16/203 combo loaded with holy water grenades)”
(Gimli) “Ha lads, Lightaxe of doom”
(leggomyass) “General Electric M-134 Minigun. If we play Star Wars next I wanna be a Predator”

Scarlet Knight: If I recall correctly, in the books, Aragorn drove off the Nazgul on Weathertop with two flaming brands, since what he carried for a sword was the shards of Narsil. In the movie he used his sword and one brand. So the “weak against fire” bit was established by Tolkien.

I agree with Tess – you’re really going out on a limb to satisfy our insatiable greed for your posts, and for that, I am (as I’m sure everyone else is), truly grateful. Do get well soon! You have both my husband’s and my own best wishes.

Can we give those Undead Ninja-pirate magi with bionic implants, some ‘Sword-chucks’?
Now that would be an awesome combo….

And I’m sure Gandalf could do one or two Hadokens on the forces of darkness.
He doesn’t seem to actually do a lot of magic. Seems strange for a wizard. I mean the average wizard of his level should be able to do quite a few spells, but Gandalf just seems to hit things with his sword…. More like a fighter…

Okey dokey. Mines called… MEGA-TRONN. Oh, he’s also your gay charcters half brother. I should have asked first but it’s cool right? Oh and I rolled the stats on the way here. Came out perfect! What luck!

Marty@53
Yeah, I agree. This strip, OOTS (and now YAFGC) are the only things I’ve seen that stand in the same company as Finieous Fingers, although Yamara came close.

And I know, I dated myself. Started this game around ’75 or ’76 with the blue box and quickly ‘graduated’ to the ‘real’ 3-volume boxed set, added Chainmail (the forerunner, miniatures rules, not RPG) and, as they came out, the Greyhawk and Blackmoor supplements…

Excellent point 5 toed sloth. It's mind blowing just trying to grasp the depth of Tolkeins books. I think that much can be gleamed by reading his books.

Just remember that Tolkien was always the first to point out that his works were over-analyzed. He claims they were written for the sake of the story, not as a political or social commentary, allegory, or other symbolic work. His stories were intended as an idea of what true British mythology could have been, had the original myths and legends of the land not been largely lost and the remaining parts changed or influenced by other cultures. Read the story for the sake of the story, there are definetely things that can be learned from them, as with any other great work, just don’t read too much into it.

So, now I’ll play the ‘with Mate’ card on the Dire Infernal Lava-Born Russian/Latin-American Undead Paratrooper Ninja Robot Pirate Wizard Cyborg Tentacled Monkeys with laser eyes FROM THE FUTURE in GENETICALLY ENHANCED bikinis… for justice! And in case you’ve got something else up your sleeve, I’ll throw in a ‘…Which, When Done Right, None Can Defend’. So you take eleventy billion points of damage, but at least you can save for half…